Harvard Professor Gates Is Half-Irish, Related to Cop Who Arrested Him

Two Men at Center of Controversy Linked by Irish Heritage

By NIALL O'DOWD
IrishCentral.com Publisher
July 28, 2009

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the black professor at the center of the racial story involving his arrest outside his Harvard University-owned house, has spoken proudly of his Irish roots.

AP graphic of Cambridge Police Officer James Crowley, left, and Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who share an Irish lineage.

(AP Graphic)

Strangely enough, he and the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, both trace their ancestry back to the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages.

In a PBS series on African-American ancestry that he hosted in 2008, Gates discovered his Irish roots when he found he was descended from an Irish immigrant and a slave girl.

He went to Trinity College in Dublin to have his DNA analyzed. There he found that he shared 10 of the 11 DNA matches with offspring of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the fourth century warlord who created one of the dominant strains of Irish genealogy because he had so many offspring.

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